From “Sidney Poitier to Steve Jones,” as he proudly declared, do you know of any musician/actor like Michael Des Barres who can claim such a pedigree? Power Station vocalist (after Robert Palmer bowed out of touring that band), fronting Detective, a band personally signed by Jimmy Page to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, and stalwart on super popular American TV shows like MacGyver and Rosanne — Des Barres has done it all and continues to do it all.
Presently, he has one hell of a fantastic new CD out called Carnaby Street. It was produced almost all live with his own Michael Des Barres Band. After over 40 years of recording and performing, Des Barre has returned to his roots with the new album. I had the great fortune of sitting down with this Renaissance man for a no-holds barred interview, discussing the new record as well as highlights of his colorful career.
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First of all, congratulations on Carnaby Street. It’s a great CD.
Oh, thanks so much, that’s so sweet of you to say. I’m really shocked over the reception over it. I knew we had hit a nerve with it because the five of us really gelled over the common frame of reference of this type of music.
It really does sound like a live good old live rockin’ band record.
In the very first hour with those five people in a room I knew something was happening and it’s an amazing feeling when that happens. After all of the stuff I have done, you spend an awful lot of trying to make things work, of square pegs in round holes and so on, but this really was a magic experience.
As I have read from the press on it, you basically recorded it live, right?
Yes, the key to it was we went to play in clubs all over the place — Nashville, Atlanta, California — before we set foot in a studio. So by the time we did get in a room it took one week to record it, there are no overdubs expect some backup percussion and then we mixed it in three days. That’s why it sounds fun.
I especially like the economy of the tunes. You get in, tell a good story, rock and then you’re out.
When you have done it for a while you really try to get to the essence of what something is. Especially today when we’re so saturated with stuff like Kim Kardashian’s ass and Ann Romney’s speech and what’s happening on Jersey Housewives. We‘re inundated with excess. So in terms of rock and roll, which is excessive by its nature, I really didn’t think about it. I just did it so it’s instinctive that you’re not gonna double that solo, make that intro more complicated and come up with an ending that’s so clever it ends up about as sexy as an ashtray. I wanted to cut it down, break it down. The guys I have with me-and this is important-are accomplished session players, the music that we’re playing is their night job as opposed to their day job. This is a vacation to play this.
For me personally the entire thing opens up with the title track. You really captured that time back then in the 60s so perfectly I think.
Well, you don’t know how happy that makes me to hear you say that. It seems to me that period of time was the template for rock and roll. What is rock and roll? What does it encompass? It was born with these skinny white working class English kids who loved Muddy Waters and what has happened since has become something else. So many wonderful artists like Kurt, Slim Shady have come from it, but what I’m playing is what I know, which is when I was 15, 16 in London and I went to see the Animals. I saw Jimi Hendrix, I went to school with Mitch Mitchell. It changed my life.
Amazing days, huh?
Yes, very much so. You had Brian Jones dressed like Oscar Wilde playing guitar like Elmore James! That’s the visual memory, that’s never gonna happen again. It was a social liberation fueled by hashish and silk and satin, post World War 11. It was a time indescribable in its freedom. Every night there were these amazing bands and you’d wake up around two in the afternoon, go down to Carnaby Street, the Kings Road, smoke some hash, buy a beautiful pair of silk pants, float into some girl’s bedroom; float on down into a club and listen to Terry Reid!
But I’m not saying it’s better or worse than what’s happening now. It’s absolutely important that people know that when I talk about those days I have no problem with Lady Gaga or Little Wayne. They can do whatever they please and it’s wonderful they are entertaining millions of people. I just prefer Little Richard — it’s as simple as that.
This kind of feeds into something unrelated to the CD, but that I just have to ask — Can you give us some thoughts about being in one of the most popular films from the 60s, To Sir With Love?
I was only 16 at the time. I had been in a different school for 8 years and was just in acting school all of three months. My father was a marquis, as am I, and it’s hard to live with the burden of that because having a title like that is not so very rock and roll…and I wanted to get rid of that, though it did give me access to these libraries and I became very academic, I read a lot which really helped my life. So I’m in drama school for all of three months and the Columbia executives and the director of the film come and they choose members of the drama school for the film. Now I had never had experience in a vast production like this. I had done British television, I did a movie with Tony Curtis when I was 14 that they let me out of school to do, but I had no idea about something of this magnitude. I had no idea really how to even act in front of a camera. So what happened to me was the whole focus of that experience was Sidney Poitier.
What amazes me to this day is I have worked with a lot of great people, but I learned the most from Sidney Poitier at a stage in my life when it was so important to get it right. He gave me a work ethic that stayed with me until today. At the same time, I’d be out at night going to the clubs; I spent three months on that movie and I must have slept three hours. That’s why I wore the shades.
Which Sidney Poitier’s teacher character makes a point of taking off your character in the film!
Everybody was always taking my shades off. Sidney saw a craft service person do it and said let’s do that in the movie.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about being asked to join Queen after Freddie Mercury died…which you turned down.
Well Freddie is irreplaceable. It would be like saying I could do a better job than Winston Churchill. The thing about my stuff is I have said yes 99.9 percent of the time to everything. I really do believe absolutely candidly the reason I’ve been around for 50 years is because I’ve said yes and not no. And yes, there were many other things I said yes to that I know weren’t absolutely perfect for me but I do know one thing leads to another. I have always been of the ethos that work means work, it’s not even work, it’s self expression for me. But that’s a no brainer what you just mentioned. The Queen situation just wasn’t going to work for me.
Any specific memories of the Led Zeppelin years?
Those years were a blessing…and a curse. Zep was at their peak. I’d known Jimmy because he was with Miss Pamela (Michael Des Barres married Pamela Des Barres, the famous groupie/author, in 1977). He loved Silverhead (Des Barres’ band from 1972-74), so our relationship was in place years before he ever signed Detective (Des Barres’ band, post-Silverhead) to Swan Song. But because of who they were and what was happening personally for them, for all of us really, we were comprised by various substances. One had enormous amounts of money and time on one’s hand and because I was waiting for Jimmy to produce us — it took a year — and back then you give Michael Des Barres a million dollars and leave him in L.A. for a year, disaster will happen.
Any plans to tour behind Carnaby Street? It would be shame not to with such a kicking band and solid CD.
I am playing a few gigs here in California, but in January we plan to go out and play live, I plan to play live for the next year actually. We have some big things coming in regards to touring that I can’t reveal just yet but it all should be terribly exciting.
Wwe can’t thank you enough for taking the time to talk to us today. We wish you all continued success with the record, tour, everything you’re into.
Thanks. You have a beautiful, beautiful day. It was so nice to talk to you.
